


proofing

by gruhukens



Category: Bitterblue - Kristin Cashore, Graceling - Kristin Cashore
Genre: Bakery, Canon Disabled Character, Comfort No Hurt, F/F, Female Character of Color, Female-Centric, Femslash, Happy Ending, Healing, Healthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 03:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6686725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gruhukens/pseuds/gruhukens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bitterblue appears in the kitchen quite suddenly, some months after the departure of the Dellian contingent.</p><p>(Or, How to Speak the Language of Pastry, and What It Means when the Queen of Monsea Keeps Surprising You in Your Kitchens)</p>
            </blockquote>





	proofing

**Author's Note:**

> when i say SELF you say INDULGENT
> 
> update: podfic now available [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12346968?show_comments=true&view_full_work) by the amazing Chestnut_filly, i cannot believe i was so lucky as to have this story put to audio by someone so talented

Bitterblue appears in the kitchen quite suddenly, some months after the departure of the Dellian contingent.

The bakery hands fluster and fuss like a brood of chickens. Drawing herself up from her bloomer dough, Anna instead finds herself genuinely pleased by Bitterblue’s presence after so much time away, and so many grave developments. The young queen looks drawn and older, but more self-assured. Queenhood sits more securely on her shoulders than Anna’s ever seen it before; she even wears the Crown more naturally than she had done when they worked in the kitchens together.

Anna takes a brief moment to clean her hands of the dough, still somewhat sticky and peppered with seeds, before meeting Bitterblue halfway between the kitchen counters.

“Lady Queen,” she says, sketching a rough bow; and then, with a little more familiarity, “It’s good to see you again, Bitterblue.”

Bitterblue’s smile is still the same as ever. She flashes it briefly Anna’s way, and then extends a hand.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you in the middle of work,” she says. “But I didn’t want to disturb you in your free time. I had some ideas I wanted to ask your opinion of. May I borrow you briefly?”

Anna considers a moment.

“Yes,” she says. “We’re not busy this time of day, there’s nothing much that needs my eye – but,” seeing Bitterblue nod almost imperceptibly in satisfaction, “- you knew that, didn’t you?”

“I’ve missed the kitchens,” Bitterblue admits. “I think of them from time to time. It was nice to have a task which involved no paperwork and nobody’s lives and suffering, only their happiness at dinner.”

“And are you?” says Anna, gesturing to her second to take over, as Bitterblue turns towards the door. Bitterblue stops, looking confused.

“Happy at dinner,” Anna clarifies, falling into step beside her. Bitterblue laughs; it’s a beautiful sound.

“With your potato bread, I could hardly fail to be,” she says earnestly.

Bitterblue’s elbow brushes briefly against Anna’s, as if she’s unsure whether or not to offer her arm. For a moment, Anna hesitates, and then she clasps it with her hand, as well as she can. Bitterblue’s countenance doesn’t change, but she relaxes a little.

Anna’s hand rests over Bitterblue’s forearm all the way back to her office.

 

* * *

 

 

As Anna closes the door behind her, Bitterblue settles behind her desk. She waits until Anna has taken a seat on the other side to begin.

“This is what I propose,” she says. “I’m not sure if you are familiar with the new systems of support for -” unconsciously, her chin raises a notch, “- the damage done to those left behind by my father?”

Anna makes a noise of affirmation. Bitterblue seems to loosen somewhat, and brings up several scrolls from drawers of her desk.

“I’m looking at nation-wide schemes of reparation and treatment, to look after the gaping holes these nine years have either ignored or exacerbated,” she says, indicating pages and pages of writing. “But on a smaller-scale, help will be available to individual citizens who feel it necessary. I’ve consulted with more doctors than I’d care to count on the subject and have most of my plans finalized, but I thought…”

For a long moment, Bitterblue looks at Anna across the table, as if sizing her up.

“My father hurt many people,” she says bluntly. “One of them was me. Through this year, I’ve grown to live with it as well as I think I am able, and as Queen, it’s my duty to examine all of the possible options available to help my citizens, even if that involves examining my own thoughts and feelings. It was useful for me, to help in the kitchen. It was useful to think only of what I was creating with my own hands, something that would go on to nourish others. It was useful, I think, to be useful.”

Bitterblue shows no sign of this being an emotional subject, Anna thinks. She watches as Bitterblue spreads her hands on the table.

“Some of my subjects wish to talk about the horrors perpetuated under my father’s rule, and some of them don’t. Everybody heals in their own way. So what is being built in the East quarter now is a place in the city for those who would not find it useful to talk; somewhere they can go to create things. Bake things. Grow things. And so on. What I wish from you is your expertise; do you have an apprentice, one of the appropriate temperament, who would be willing to teach in such place?”

“You’re not asking for my opinion on the plan,” says Anna, slowly, pleased. Bitterblue frowns.

“No,” she says, quietly but firmly. “This scheme is my own, and I believe in it. I require – I request – only your suggestion on candidacy.”

Anna considers for a moment.

“May I have some time?” she asks. “There are several prospects. I’d like to think it over, Lady Queen.”

Bitterblue waves a hand amiably in the air. She holds Anna’s gaze for several seconds before looking down at her scrolls.

“Take as much as you need,” she says.

 

* * *

 

 

When there’s a knock on her door, Bitterblue opens it to find Anna, flushed with exertion and smelling faintly of chives.

 “Yes,” she says instantly. “I am available for the position. I have a number of workers under me who I would trust to run the palace bakery in my place. I would hope, Lady Queen, that you would consider me.”

Bitterblue, looking unsure, steps back to let Anna enter the room.

“Anna,” she says, “this would be a demotion for you. You’re an exceptionally skilled baker and chef, and you handle the bakery with more grace than anyone else than I could name. You’re overqualified for this job.”

Anna stops just inside the doorway, rubbing her chin, and tries to think of the right way to phrase herself.

“Lady Queen,” she asks eventually, “will you forgive me an impropriety?”

Bitterblue, watching her closely, laughs a little.

“I can’t promise not to throw you in the dungeons if the treason is bad enough. But,” she says lightly, with a wink, “finish with a compliment, and you’ll be fine.”

Anna does not beat about the bush. “Do you believe your experience with Leck makes you a more or less able Queen, at looking after your citizens?”

Bitterblue’s humour is gone in an instant. Anna regrets asking a question so personal, a little; it is a liberty, and Bitterblue may be something close to a friend, but she is also a queen.

“A year ago, perhaps, I would have said less able,” says Bitterblue softly, looking at the floor, and then she straightens her back to look Anna in the eyes. “But now, more so. I suffered the same as my citizens and am well placed to help them now. Who more than me would understand the nature of my father, and his madness? Who would care more? But I don’t understand the relevance. What does this have to do with the job?”

“I didn’t know Leck,” says Anna. “But I have my own share of old wounds. I think pain is, in some ways, universal. I started off kneading bread, to try to strengthen my hand, and then to distract myself when it would not heal. When you speak of creating and feeling useful, I understand. And besides, if you’ll forgive me, I feel as if I’ve seen you grow, for all that we’re both so young. You were in pain and unsure when we first met, and now you’ve grown beyond it and you’re using it to help others. I’d feel inadequate, Lady Queen, if I could not do the same.”

Bitterblue stares at her. The air in the room is tense, and Anna feels her heart swell.

“You forgot to compliment me,” Bitterblue jokes after a moment. Her eyes are shining.

“You are beautiful,” says Anna in response. There’s no hint of jest in her voice.

After a moment, Bitterblue breaks eye contact. Anna, too, looks away. Gaze fixed on her scrolls, Bitterblue runs her hand lightly over the edge of the desk.

“Anna,” she says. “The job is yours.”

 

* * *

 

 

They meet some dozen times over the next few weeks to hash out the details. Anna, suddenly busy with training her most promising bakery hand, can only find time before work begins, and Bitterblue’s main duties keep her busy until after sunset, so they meet in Bitterblue’s rooms in the middle night, Bitterblue sometimes already in nightdress. Across the desk – Anna’s hands held firmly in her lap – Bitterblue, yawning, spreads pages of statistics, takes notes on ingredients and recipes, reads and relays information from Madlen and other doctors. Anna sits and absorbs and battles with the daunt she feels at the task ahead of her, but she believes in what she had told Bitterblue: she is the right person for this task.

All too soon, Anna finds she has less and less to do, as she relinquishes control of the bakery section to the new head. She’s capable, cool and professional and she has a natural command of the bakery hands almost equal to Anna’s own; after a few weeks of supervision Anna feels useless hovering over her shoulder. Bitterblue tells her the preparations are almost ready, but not there yet, so to pass the time, Anna begins to bake.

Scones first, she thinks, for her students. An easy start. Three ingredients. She clears a counter for herself in the corner of the kitchen, and practices a batch. Bitterblue exclaims when Anna brings them up in lieu of meetings, and they polish them off together with cream and apricot jam. Then sweet buns. Plain cakes, and chocolate cakes. Traybakes. Bread. Rolls and bagels, twisted, shaped and plaited. Delicate, flaky pastries. She and Bitterblue no longer need to plan together, but Anna still climbs the steps with the day’s efforts in the early morning, and Bitterblue never seems disgruntled by the intrusion.

As she bakes and rolls and shapes, Anna finds herself working out the anxiety she hadn’t even realised she was experiencing. She’s not old – a few years older than Bitterblue, maybe, younger by far than most head bakers – but she’s naturally collected and inclined to be sensible, not prone to baseless fears. This is something different, though. She thinks about what Bitterblue had said, about the pressure of being responsible for people’s lives, and whether she is up to the task.

She kneads her anxieties into savoury bialys. Bitterblue inhales five in one sitting, eats another half out of Anna’s hand, and claims the rest for her lunch, smiling more widely than Anna’s ever seen her. Anna wipes a poppy seed from Bitterblue’s cheek and feels untouchable.

 

* * *

 

 

Over linzer torte one morning in spring, Bitterblue tells her the school is opening. Anna calmly eats another bite of pastry, expecting the worry to come, but thinks only, _this will be a good thing for them to bake._

 

* * *

As a teacher, she is allowed in a week before the school opens to familiarise herself and prepare her classroom. The building is beautiful: low, glass fronted, covered in plants. Unintimidating. It is nothing like the high, cold castle she calls home, but she feels instantly comfortable and relaxed.

Inside, she marvels at the details that have sprung to life from their discussions. Everything is new and brightly clean, and Anna momentarily stifles a snort at the thought of how long her bakers will take to rectify that. Her _students._

She is not wrong.

They are not the trained bakery hands she is used to working with. They’re messy, and unco-ordinated, and many have never baked before. And she finds it is not only the bakers, but the style of baking which is novel: not about the product, but instead about the creation. On her first day – and for several other days afterwards – she feels a certain amount of guilt in praising the efforts of students whose sweets and breads would never have been fit to serve in the palace, but it’s tempered by the resolve they display in their cookery efforts. They work hard, and they are rewarded, by Anna’s praise and by their own bakes. Anna, watching them, reminds herself more than once to credit Bitterblue as she credits her students: this was an inspired idea.

She quickly finds she has a much better temperament for the job than any apprentice she could have considered: they were all too firm, or soft as crumbling oatcakes, and nobody who comes to the class needs handling in the same way. Some are angry, and she directs that anger towards the bread-kneading, mixing and pureeing, whilst some more fragile students she sits with decoration and construction at first. Often it works sideways, though, and what some quiet students need is to move and push and shape, and others, restless, to be set to delicate sugarwork.

She still meets with Bitterblue; not as often as they had done when planning, but at least once a week. The new daylight hours she kept and the shifting of her routine had concerned her at first, as breaks in habit were wont to do – did she still want to visit Bitterblue? When would be an appropriate time? Would Bitterblue still wish to see her? – but she turns up at Bitterblue’s tower the evening of her first class with a basket of her own, demonstrative scones from class, and Bitterblue welcomes her in, gently fusses over how tired she looks, and that is that.

The first few weeks of her new routine are difficult. Several times she falls asleep on Bitterblue’s sofa, still getting accustomed to diurnal hours, and she comes near to tears after work once or twice before learning the hard ways of detaching herself from her students’ lives and issues. It’s difficult in a different way to the kitchens, learning all over again ways to be self-collected, in control; it changes her all over again. But like all things do, it gets easier. She sleeps through the night ‘til morning. She perfects her manner. She and Bitterblue go semi-regularly over the budgets and student reports, and Anna is at first amazed and then gratified to see her students’ comments: the facts of their healing, through their hands and hers.

When her class makes a perfect croquembouche, she beams so wide she thinks her face will crack, but she does not cry. When her youngest student – a girl from the East quarter, quiet and scarred from something she will not speak of – holds up her wonky danish and smiles for the first time, she does. But late in the night, in Bitterblue’s rooms. As she does, Bitterblue holds both her hands carefully and tells her she understands.

 

* * *

 

 

When Bitterblue visits the classroom, three students drop their bowls. One of them shatters, spreading ceramic and breadcrumbs all over the floor. Anna, fetching the brush, has to work hard to disguise her delight.

“You again,” she says, mock-sternly, gesturing to the mess. “Disrupting my class with your magisterial presence, Lady Queen. To what do we owe the honour?”

One of her students gasps audibly at her playful sarcasm. Another, behind him, is heaping too much salt into his strudel mixture, avidly watching their interaction. Anna, handing off the brush to a student and rolling her eyes, goes to help him. She cannot control her smile. Neither can Bitterblue, she sees, glancing over.

“Don’t mind her,” says Bitterblue good-naturedly - to the students, but not looking away from Anna, watching her from the doorway. “It’s all the salt and mint she puts in her bread. She bakes up bitter. Besides, that’s how I know she likes me. If she was nice to me, then I’d be afraid.”

Anna smiles, while the students look even more horrified.

“Lady _Queen_ ,” she says obsequiously, widening her eyes and curtseying as low as she can muster. “What an _honour_ to have you with us her today. A _joy._ A _delight._ I feel healed already in your presence. You look simply _radiant –_ where are you going?”

Bitterblue, already ducking out of the door, is laughing so hard she seems close to tears.

“Paperwork awaits me, my humble subjects,” she declares; and then, returning Anna’s warm smile, “save me some strudel.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Why did you come to visit today, Lady Queen?” asks Anna absent-mindedly, running an eye over the numbers. “Was there something amiss in the class? I believed you’d have too many duties to drop by often. I’d say you’re always welcome, but I fear the damage your long-term presence would do to my more nervous students. Not all of us are built to withstand your royal company, day-to-day, you know.”

Bitterblue blushes deeply in the lamplight.

“I don’t know, it was a stressful day in my towers,” she says. “Some distant lord insistent I’m to be my father again, only treacherously female, now that I’m interfering with his affairs. I wanted to see you. Is it a crime, to visit a friend? Not one I’ve ever enforced, surely. And I believe I was promised strudel.”

“You _demanded_ it,” Anna scolds, but she retrieves the piece she’s saved from her bag anyway.

“You know,” she says, palming the treat into Bitterblue’s hands, giddy and free-tongued from their comfortable banter, “I almost can’t believe he would say that. Sometimes it seems the whole world sees you the way I do, or maybe I simply believe it to because I think it should.”

“And how’s that?” asks Bitterblue, in between bites of strudel. “Cake thief? Bread connoisseur? Magisterial Queen?”

“The best outcome. Of all the things that could happened,” says Anna firmly, sweeping crumbs from Bitterblue’s papers. “To this country.”

“And to you?” says Bitterblue, chasing a crumb on her sleeve with her tongue. She looks ridiculous.

Anna, hands still on the desk, watching Bitterblue with an explicable bittersweet fondness, forgets to regulate her tone entirely.

“And to me,” she says, and it comes out in a brutal kind of sigh.

There’s a silence that Anna didn’t expect that’s as loud as any retort could be, and it fills Anna with a sickening kind of regret. She looks up. Bitterblue is staring at her, as heartbroken as Anna thinks a body could be. The crumb is still on her sleeve. It is no longer funny.

Anna becomes aware, almost absent-mindedly, that Bitterblue’s dark, smooth skin is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen, then she returns to her senses. Her hands are clutched into the skirt of her trousers. She rises to leave without Bitterblue’s permission; all she knows is that she must leave. She must leave. Bitterblue looks shocked; she rises for a moment, and then sits down.

“Anna,” Bitterblue bursts, when Anna’s hand is on the doorknob. “I know.”

Anna turns, stricken. Bitterblue is still sitting at her desk, slumped, hands in her hair.

“Lady Queen,” she says, but there’s nothing else to say. There’s guilt and horror curdled up in her stomach. There is no way for her to verbalise her shame. “I didn’t mean to…”

“I did,” confesses Bitterblue. “All of it. But I shouldn’t, because I can’t. I’m sorry, I’ve not been fair to you. I never _learn_.”

She looks perilously near to tears. Anna is alarmed; she hasn’t seen Bitterblue anywhere close to losing control since the deaths of her advisers. She focuses on this, rather than on the impossible sadness drawing up in her chest.

“Anna, please, just-.” starts Bitterblue, motioning to the door, and Anna – with an incredible sort of bravery – smiles, and leaves.

 

* * *

 

 

For the first time in several months, Anna revisits the royal kitchens at early morning, before class. The kitchen staff are much the same, and after the first few necessary minutes of greetings and pleasantries and smiles, they leave her, as usual, to her baking.

She clears off her corner surface, pulls currents, flour and sugar from the store, and sets to work.

 

* * *

 

 

Bitterblue knocks on her door. She is carrying the basket of eccles cakes that Anna had left at her rooms as a kind of apology. When Anna opens her door, Bitterblue holds the pastries between them like an olive branch.

“I thought you might like to share them,” she says. Anna hesitates, then opens the door a little wider to let her in. She takes the basket with her good hand as Bitterblue passes, and sits as Bitterblue does the same, waits for Bitterblue to speak.

“I have loved before,” says Bitterblue. She’s sitting on Anna’s cold floor, her nightdress tucked up around her feet. Anna, sitting with a cake in her hand, is struck by the absurdity of this situation: the Queen with her braids and rings and stature, with her bare feet on Anna’s floorboards and a pastry in her hand, talking of love with her.

She thrusts out the cake. Bitterblue takes it.

“I was afraid,” she says, looking down at the pastry in her hands. “I caused so much pain, so much confusion – but there was so much untruth last time. I have tried, since then, to be as honest as possible in all situations. I have never lied to you,” she says, looking up at Anna. “And it would be a disservice to myself and to you, if I pretended I don’t feel the way I do for you. But I also cannot ignore how unfair this would be to you.”

Gently, Anna sets down her own cake, and folds to her knees beside Bitterblue.

“What –“ she begins to ask, and then unsticks her throat. “What do you imagine I wish from you, Lady Queen?”

Bitterblue stares at her cake again.

“Lady Queen. Bitterblue. As I see it, the magic of this – of love –“ she says, and hears Bitterblue’s intake of breath beside her, “is that I don’t want anything from you except to be happy. What I _feel_ is nothing more than a wish your health and happiness, and my own, no matter how that should happen. I don’t wish for crowns or gold or power. Just for peace in your heart and mine.”

“How are you so wise,” says Bitterblue, half-joking, “when I’m so confused?”

Anna snorts, loudly.

“Lady Queen, don’t mistake me so. I don’t think a person walks about in all the seven kingdoms who isn’t half full of fear and doubt. I believe only that the trick, as _you_ so wisely pointed out, is honesty. As long as we can be true with each other and ourselves, even about the things that scare us, we’ll muddle along somehow.”

Bitterblue is silent for a long time, while Anna fidgets, uncharacteristically.

“I like that,” Bitterblue says. “Honesty. Lies never caused me anything but heartbreak. Would it pain you for me to be honest, right now?”

Anna shakes her head.

“I care for you very deeply,” says Bitterblue, in something approaching a rush. “And I trust you beyond most of my advisors. But this feeling scares me; I cannot marry and I cannot promise equal partnership, for my position cannot afford that to any of the citizens of Monsea. It has broken my heart before, and I fear that pain again, even though I grew from it, and I fear above all hurting you. But I know that I would do, if my country required it. I must always be a Queen first, and a person second. But this does not stop me from wanting, very much, to be with you. And I truly wish you would stop calling me Lady Queen.”

Bitterblue sets aside her cake. Her hands are shaking. Anna does not take them in hers, although she desperately wants to.

“This heartbreak,” she says instead. “It must have ended very badly.”

“Not so badly, in the end,” confesses Bitterblue. “But it took a lot of pain to get us there.”

“Pain,” says Anna, not looking her, “that came from lies? You said these lies caused you heartbreak? Bitterblue. May I in my turn now be honest?”

Bitterblue doesn’t answer, so Anna forges ahead anyway.

“I won’t deny,” she says, “that I also care very deeply for you. But I believe – perhaps because I have neither your history nor your responsibilities – that we have more choices than you may think. I don’t wish for marriage. Nor do I wish for children. And I cannot promise you that the future will be smooth for either of us. But what I can promise is that I see your fears and hesitancies, and I do not share them. I prefer to focus on what we have now, and I can never be sure of your feelings for me,” she looks at her hands, “but I am sure of my feelings for you, and, like I said, I can promise to be honest and respectful of you and your wishes and my own for as long as I live. That is the most I can do.

“That, and, give you my promise,” Anna finishes, “that you have only to say the word, and I will depart from you for however long you choose, without resentment, and only with best wishes for your happiness. Not simply because you are my Queen, but also because you are my friend. I will gladly take however much you are willing to give me.”

“I’m afraid,” says Bitterblue, her eyes glistening, “that I will never be able to give you what you need.”

Anna shrugs, somewhat bravely.

“Then don’t,” she says. “Give me whatever you’d like. Save the rest for yourself. You seem to be under the impression that all I desire in the world is to suck you dry, Bitterblue, but as I said, I wish for the exact opposite; I rather think you’ve had enough of that to last you a lifetime. Some people are soft muslin, for straining: they look fine and strong, and you pour yourself and your time into them, but by doing this, you drain yourself through and they give nothing back but the worst parts of you. Others do the opposite: they build you up. I have every intention of helping you grow, for however much you’ll give me.”

Bitterblue hiccups.

“I know,” Anna admits, “I’m better at baking that I am at simile. But that’s why you’re the wordsmith, Bitterblue, and my hands make only pastries.”

Bitterblue is truly crying now, but she returns Anna’s gaze, and she seems more emotional than distraught.

“Give me time,” she says, between sobs. “I need time.”

Anna smiles, picks up Bitterblue’s cake, and holds it out to her again.

“Take as much as you need,” she says.

 

* * *

 

 

When she lets herself into the bakery, sunrise is breaking over the city. She has no real need to get up so early – her classes don’t start until several hours after dawn – but it’s been her custom over the past few weeks to practise her bakes in the early morning, now that her class is moving on to more advanced cookery; now she doesn’t need the sleep from staying up so late to meet with Bitterblue.

And she has learned the lessons her classes have, the lesson she began to learn all those years ago: it’s good to be creating. It is far superior to wallowing.

This morning, the room is already warmed with oven heat and the air smells sweet, dusty with icing sugar. Anna, confused, spots a tray of pastries on the side closest to the oven and heads over to inspect.

They're pastry hearts, baked but undecorated. The desserts are wonkily constructed but beautifully cooked, as if by someone who has all the technical knowledge but none of the skills. They sit next to a prepared bowl of sugar icing. Anna, charmed, picks one up. It’s light and firm, and the colour underneath is beautiful. It’s a good bake.

Bitterblue appears suddenly from the store cupboard, hands full of cut strawberries, one in between her lips. She looks alarmed. There’s icing sugar in her thick hair and on her face. Anna’s heart stops.

“Anna?” Bitterblue says, swallowing her mouthful hastily. "So early?"

Anna is still holding the pasty. She looks from it to Bitterblue, nonplussed.

“I had no idea you had such talent, Bitterblue,” she says calmly, in lieu of anything else. Her heart is thumping in her chest.

Bitterblue takes some shaky steps forward.

“I listened, when we talked,” she says, sounding almost shy. “I liked to hear you talk about baking. Preheat the oven, not too hot. Sieve the flour. Don’t open the oven halfway through baking. I thought you’d like them.”

“They’re good,” Anna hears herself say, with more feeling than she’s ever used with a student. She wonders exactly when Bitterblue became this good at pulling emotion out of her. “Excellent. Bitterblue, are you here to talk?”

Bitterblue steps closer. She’s a foot or two away now, no further. There’s a smudge of icing sugar on her lip.

“Yes, and no,” she says. “I’m not going to apologise for needing time. But I am going to thank you for saying everything that I needed to hear. And I’d like to try to be with you, in whatever capacity we’re capable of being. Um, that’s the yes.”

“Oh, that's it?” Anna says, breathless, joking. "What's the no?" She sets down the pastry with an accidental snap. Bitterblue’s eyes crinkle with her smile, and sets down the strawberries next to the icing sugar. She steps closer, and ducks her head. It's asking permission, in a sweet kind of way, and Anna finds it almost unbearably thoughtful. She nods.

Bitterblue's mouth ghosts over Anna’s gently. Anna closes her eyes, uses her good hand to rest on Bitterblue’s hip, ever so gently, and licks at Bitterblue’s lip, at the smudge of icing sugar. She feels on fire from the top of her head to the bottom, breathing in Bitterblue’s breaths, brushing noses.

“It’s okay,” says Bitterblue, in the minute space between them. “Don’t think this is the only time we’ll ever have to speak about this. We’ll work it out as we go. We’ve got this. I will not make the same mistakes.”

"I know," says Anna, "I know, I know you -"

Bitterblue closes the gap, and swallows the words from Anna’s mouth, the sweet strawberry taste of her.

It's good, Anna thinks, sweet; and pulls her closer.


End file.
